


Chinese Pizza

by PeachyRenjun



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, Pizza, i'd call this crack but it's uh inspired, the johnten is mostly implied, they all go to college in china
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 02:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16008281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachyRenjun/pseuds/PeachyRenjun
Summary: Johnny learns that there is no such thing as "normal pizza" in China(or a 5+1 style story about the search for American style pizza)





	Chinese Pizza

**Author's Note:**

> Listen if you've never had Chinese pizza when you're used to American pizza then you have not felt true pain

1.

 

Johnny discovers, within the first week of their multiple-week orientation, that the cafeteria has a pizza option at lunch and dinner. Well, it should probably be called a “pizza” option, because Johnny’s pretty sure he’s never seen a pizza like this before.

“I’m pretty sure they just stuck this into a microwave and unfroze it,” Yuta says, hesitantly poking at the crust. “Like I’m pretty sure I can still see some ice crystals.”

Ten carefully tears a slice away, looking at it with pure dread in his eyes. “There’s no sauce on this. Like none.”

Johnny and Yuta give him looks somewhere between disgust and a kind of morbid curiosity as he moves the slice closer to his lips. As he hesitantly bites down, Lucas sits down at the final empty seat at their table, carrying a tray with rice, fish, and the mysterious green vegetable that changes name plates everytime Johnny sees it.

“This is a crime against humanity,” Ten says, only one bite down. He looks hesitant to take another one.

“What?” Lucas asks. “The pizza?”

“Uh-huh,” Yuta says, gesturing to the pizza still sitting, lingering, on Johnny’s tray. “See for yourself.”

Lucas shrugs, grabbing for a piece without a second thought. He takes a few bites, shooting a confused look at the three international students. “What about it?”

Johnny blinks at him, looking back at Ten and Yuta to make sure they’re thinking the same thing he’s thinking. He turns back to Lucas, looks him in the eye. “Lucas, do you think this is normal pizza?”

“Yeah,” he says, now biting into the crust. “Like, it’s not the best, but there’s nothing really weird about it.”

Johnny blinks. “Lucas, have you ever had American pizza?”

“No, but like, it can’t be that different, right? Pizza is pizza.”

Ten looks like he wants to die. Yuta looks like he kind of wants to strangle Lucas, kind of wants to take him on an international trip to find better pizza. Strangling seems a lot easier, though.

Johnny’s just regretting spending 22 yuan on this travesty.

  
2.

 

“Okay, so we can either go to this hot pot place on the second floor, or we can go to the Pizza Hut near the entrance,” Taeyong says, looking around the mall as they try to negotiate lunch plans.

“Pizza Hut, please. I think I’ll die if I don’t have some good pizza,” Mark, Johnny’s roommate, says. “I haven’t had good pizza since we got here.”

“Alright,” Taeyong responds. “Any objections to that?”

Johnny and Ten both shake their heads, and Taeyong begins to lead them toward the weirdly-sloped escalators that lead back to the main entrance. Ten nearly stumbles into Johnny’s back when the escalator makes its angle change, nearly sending Johnny into the cart of a random middle-aged man standing in front of them.

They make it to the entrance unscathed, and Johnny eyes the bubble tea place next to the Pizza Hut as they make their way forward, Mark’s hopes for good pizza driving them along. Ten tugs on Johnny’s arm, pointing out an advertisement with Zhang Yixing’s face on it as they walk along. Johnny thinks it’s something about vitamin water, but his written Chinese skills are meh at best, so he doesn’t put too much stock into it.

Taeyong brings them menus from the hostess standing right outside the door, handing them out for each of them to look over. “Is that corn? On the pizza?”

“Does that one have shrimp?”

“Is that bacon?”

Johnny slowly blinks at the menu in his hands. “Do they not have normal flavors, like cheese or pepperoni?”

Taeyong slowly shakes his head, eyes filled with a regretful acceptance. “Not in China, no.”

Johnny sighs. At least there’s still the bubble tea place.

 

 

3.

 

“So if you come to trivia night, they have free pizza.”

Those words almost motivate Johnny to actually attend trivia night. After all, the cafeteria pizza may be from the sixth circle of hell, but if they were catering for an event, they’d probably order-in, right? And there’s no way that they’d get the bizarre flavors when they were trying to cater to so many people. Not everyone likes pineapple-bacon pizza, after all.

Johnny walks up the stairs to the area outside the ballroom, seeing the entire freshman class organized around a row of tables, each with a blue table cloth lightly covering them. There are pizzas on the table, but they are not in pizza form. The individual slices are lying in loose piles, sometime stacking on top of each other horizontally the way that people stack slices of watermelon.

Johnny hesitantly reaches for one of the cheese slices, already spotting that the majority of the tables are covered in the bizarre flavors that Johnny had been foolish enough not to expect. It’s cold, but not frozen or half-thawed, just room-temperature for Johnny to believe that they had been cooked a few hours before and then left out to cool down.

As Johnny catches sight of Mark, Winwin comes up to him, a slice of one of the bizarre flavors in hand. He happily bites down on it, unperturbed by both the flavor and the temperature. “Do you like the pizza?”

Johnny blinks slowly. He can get out of this, he can lie and say that he likes it before sprinting toward wherever Mark is and dragging him away from trivia night, back to the safety of their dorm room where they can eat peanut butter with spoons like the broke college students they are. “I--” He can’t do it though. Winwin just has that kind of face you can’t lie to. “It’s very, uh, different from American pizza.”

“Oh, really?” Winwin takes a thoughtful bite of his tomato-slice pizza. “In what way?”

Johnny looks to the side. Is that--Are they really-- One of the culinary staff just set down cheese pizzas on the table. And then sprinkled kale leaves over it. Kale. Over a perfectly good cheese pizza.

“I’ll tell you some other time,” Johnny says, making a mental note to grab one of the kale slices before he leaves with Mark. After all, the kale could probably be brushed off.

 

4.

 

Johnny takes a deep breath as he looks through the menu. It’s an Italian restaurant, a pretty upscale one too, so their pizza should be better than average, right? Johnny decides to risk it, foregoing all of the safe pasta options in favor of the “pizza margherita.”

Kun and Ten each order a pasta dish, and they make light conversation as the waiter leaves. Johnny cringes internally at the 86 Yuan WeChat Pay receipt, but hopes that maybe, just maybe, this time will be the charm.

An awkward conversation about high school dating norms across countries and one mistaken order later, Johnny is faced with an unwanted but very much appreciated bowl of free noodles, as well as his pizza. It doesn’t look too bad, really. If you ignore the quartered baby tomatoes randomly scattered across it.

“You guys can have some too,” Johnny says, gesturing to the pizza. “I’m already a little full.” Maybe he just wants to see their reactions first, wants to see whether it’s the hellfire he’s anticipating or not.

Kun eagerly takes a bite, and Ten hesitantly takes one as well. He nudges the tomato bits off of his slice, and Johnny mentally makes a note to ask him whether tomatoes fall under the category of “fruit” in Ten’s book. Then he realizes that without the tomatoes, it’s actually a regular goddamn pizza. Thank whatever deity is listening.

Johnny picks off the tomatoes, taking a bite of his now plain-cheese pizza. And it actually isn’t bad. It’s not American style pizza, definitely not Chicago style, but it’s the best he’s had in the past month.

Johnny makes a mental note to take Ten back here someday, when Kun’s awkward questions about American dating norms aren’t overpowering the conversation.

 

5.

 

“Thank you so much, Renjun,” Johnny says, taking the pizzas from his small friend as the lightning flashes above their head, warning them to get inside soon. “Really, we would’ve been screwed without you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m not becoming your personal translator though, alright? Deal with the delivery guy yourself next time.” Renjun turns on his heels and walks away before either of them can reply. Johnny just hooks his arms more securely around the pizzas as Mark shrugs and leads them back inside to the comfort of their dorm room.

They set the pizzas down on the floor, each of them grabbing one of them and placing them on their desks. Johnny looks at the box, seeing the word “pizza” written in all lowercase with a squiggly line underneath, some kind of slogan printed across the bottom in Chinese.

“Is this some kind of weird cheese?”

Johnny glances over to see Mark has already opened his own box. Johnny sighs, mentally preparing himself for disappointment as he opens his own box. It looks like pineapple pizza, little squares of yellow sticking up from the cheese. “Probably pineapple.”

“No, like, pineapple wouldn’t squish down this easily, though,” Mark says, pressing his fingers against some of the bumps in his own pizza. Johnny cringes just thinking about what that must feel like to touch. “I think it’s some kind of cheese.”

Johnny takes a slice of his out of the box, taking a bite of it. It may be bizarre, after all, but they did pay for this. Nearly four cafeteria meals worth for it. He was going to eat it if it goddamn killed him.

He can only get one slice down before he begins to experience a deep, spiritual sense of regret. “It’s not pineapple, but it’s not cheese either.”

“I think the only bearable part is the crust,” Mark says. “I’m going to just eat the crust and then go get some food from the cafeteria.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Johnny almost feels bad for wasting Renjun’s time. And his parents’ money.

 

+1.

 

They stumble off the shuttle bus, all a little tired with the school colors face-painted across their cheeks. They were promised pizza when they got back, the three hour shuttle bus journey finally behind them. Johnny’s learned not to get his hopes up, though.

Ten walks beside him, leaning into his side and smearing face paint across Johnny’s shirt as Johnny tries to speak quietly to Kun and Winwin, each of whom look just as tired. They file into the building with the cafeteria, sitting down in the lounge spaces nearby as the athletic director tells them that the pizza will arrive shortly. A few groups break off to go get dinner at a restaurant off-campus. Johnny can’t blame them for their pessimism.

Ten begins to fall asleep on Johnny’s shoulder, and the only thing keeping Johnny awake is the knowledge that the pizza will be gone within minutes of its arrival. He’s not expecting the pizza to be good, but it’s food. They’ve already missed the cafeteria dinner, after all.

When the pizza does come, Johnny nudges Ten to get up, dragging him over to where they’re opening boxes of pizzas. Johnny feels his breath catch, his heart pound. It’s cheese pizza. Actual, plain cheese pizza. And it’s not cold, or undercooked, or lacking in tomato sauce. It’s everything that Johnny’s ever wanted in life.

The international students consume most of the pizzas within a few minutes, but the Chinese students get a piece or two each as well. “Now this,” Johnny says, looking toward Kun and Winwin, “this is American pizza.”

“You like this?” Kun says, raising an eyebrow. “It’s so…”

“Plain,” Winwin finishes. “And unsweet.”

Johnny blinks. “When we all go to the US together, I’m going to physically drag you to a pizza place.”

**Author's Note:**

> Update/side-note: So the mysterious pizza toppings from part 5 were durian slices. Also, the Pizza Hut in the really touristy area in Shanghai is actually really good (they have a cheese stuffed crust option for some flavors and it's literally to die for. like it's still not quite american style but it's good).
> 
> Update update (January 2019): So the Pizza Hut on East Nanjing Rd has moved to a slightly less prominent location, but it still exists. Haven't gone to the new location to see if they still have really good pizza, but I'm guessing it does still have it. Another really good authentic option in Shanghai is Joes Pizza near the West Nanjing Rd subway station, is probably closer to authentic American pizza than the Pizza Hut was.


End file.
